Sonesta ES Suites Carmel Mountain - San Diego, San Diego

Just Okay!

Liked: Breakfast was good!
Disliked: Room could have been a little cleaner. Neighbors above with children kept tromping on floor loudly which was annoying. It would have refills of coffee pods and fresh towels. I gather there was not any daily housekeeping.

Good

Exceptional

Liked: Perfect for us, we're a family of 6. Overall it was great and a lot of places nearby which made it convenient.

For the amount of money...

Liked: Good variation of breakfast everyday; eating area is small so you have to get there early if you want a table; breakfast hours are very early (0630-0830 during the week), so if you want to sleep in a little during your vacation, you will miss breakfast. Luckily there is a McDs nearby that serves breakfast until 1030, and a Dennys 3 miles away if you prefer. We had the 2 bedroom suite with 2 bathrooms which was convenient for our family of 5, at first. Staff was polite despite our issues we had.
Disliked: Many issues with our stay: First we noticed our room (311) had an odor. We figured it was the dirty carpet, as it looked old and worn, so we never walked around barefoot. 5 days into our stay, our kids told us they had been showering in a flooded shower because the water wouldn't go down. The odor was the junk clogged in the shower drain. We told them you should have told us on the 1st day. I went to the front desk, Jerry (who was very polite) called the maintenance man to check it out. He ended up taking up our entire Sunday morning and finally saying he couldn't fix the clogged drain, and we needed to move to another room that wouldn't be available until 6pm. We came back late Sunday night and had to move all of our things to another building down the street from building 3 to building 7 (8 buildings at this location). Monday morning 3/31, we took showers (room 711) and yet another clogged bathtub (see pics attached); we were so frustrated that we just wanted to leave asap.The pool area looked honestly, disgusting to be around (see pics). Did not look well maintained at all. We did not let our kids walk around in that.The breakfast area is located in building #1, so if you stay at buildings #2-8, you have to walk outside or drive around to the first building, which is inconvenient, especially when it was raining (yes it rained). Laundry is located way in the back in building #8, not fun.And the one that took the cake, this location CHARGES $10 PER DAY to park in their unsecured parking lot. A fee that they do not mention 1)when you book or 2)when you check in. It's in a fine print under "view policies" that after checking reviews, many people do not see or notice. Our stay was 8 days so when I got the bill on day #8, I saw I was charged an extra $80 for parking, which is ridiculous because most days parking was hard to find.